The final events of the 2005 Australian Championship and Australian Junior Championship were on last weekend at Perisher Valley in NSW. With rain and storm winds forecast competitors and officials were lucky to get away with some light rain before the start of the races on Saturday and snow easing up during the races on Sunday.

Freestyle Races - Saturday August 20
In the women's 5km Clare-Louise Brumley from Templestowe kept her unbeaten run of the season intact, winning by over a minute ahead of Esther Bottomley. Camille Melvey was only 6 seconds behind Bottomley in 3rd place, with Belinda Phillips in 4th and Jane Scheer in 5th. There was a close race between the top junior girls, with Jaffa Withers taking 6th place overall just 10 seconds ahead of d'Arcy Baxter, who was also the first in the U16 class. There were some good close results further down the list as well, with Sally Cunningham 5 seconds ahead of Aimee Watson, and 3just seconds separating Juliette Booth, Clare Bradbury and Sarah Slattery. In the younger classes Elizabeth Pilat was the first in the U14 2.5km freestyle and Siobhan Jones the winner of the U12.

In the men's 10km freestyle NSW Institute of Sport skier Ben Sim added another Open and Junior Australian title to his collection, winning by 57 seconds ahead of Mark Raymond from Team Lake Mountain. James Rickard finished strongly to take 3rd place 20 seconds behind Raymond, with Chris Darlington 4th for the second time this season by just 4 seconds. Slovenian Gaber Lah, wax technician for the Austrian nordic combined team, took 5th. Mark van der Ploeg was the second junior in 6th place, 1.5 seconds ahead of Leon Spiller. Simon Flower was the first junior skier still eligible for the 2005/2006 junior team in 10th place overall, but he had a tough fight on his hands to hold off a very fast finishing Alex Almoukov (son of NSWIS coach Nick Almoukov) by 11 seconds after holding a 30 second lead on the first lap. In the younger junior classes Callum Watson won the U16 5km, Giles Richardson won the U14 2.5km in a close race with Matt Rostron (4 seconds back) and Brendan Jones (17 seconds back), and Alasdair Tutt won the U12 2.5km.

Classic Races - Sunday August 21
It was one of those tricky waxing days with variable conditions changing throughout the events and nothing really working that well everywhere. Some of the combinations used include "hairies", red stick, Rex orange klister, covered universal klister, and the new waxless bases (zeros, zetas, whatever you want to call them). Clare-Louise Brumley cleaned up the women's field again in the 5km classic, with Camille Melvey thriving in the difficult conditions to get up over Esther Bottomley for second place. Belinds Phillips was 4th once again. This time it was Sally Cunningham's turn to be the first junior, making a 25 second turnaround on Aimee Watson in the last 1.5km to take 5th place. Julietee Booth was the first U16 skier in 7th overall, 11 seconds ahead of d'Arcy Baxter who was in turn 4 seconds ahead of Jaffa Withers. In the shorter distances there were no surprises, Elizabeth Pilat and Siobhan Jones winning again in the U14 and U12.

At about the 3.5km mark in the men's 10km classic Ben Sim held a 10 second lead over NSWIS team-mate Chris Darlington, with Mark Raymond 6 second back in third. A lap later Darlington had dropped out of contention but Raymond had closed the gap to Sim down to just 4 seconds. Receiving this time split Sim buried himself over the closing 1.5km and extended his lead to 19 seconds. Mark van der Ploeg produced one of his best races of the season to finish 4th, with Nick Almoukov similarly finding good form to take 5th. This time the first eligible junior was Ewan Watson in 8th overall, 25 seconds ahead of Neil van der Ploeg. Callum Watson , Giles Richardson, and Alasdair Tutt again won the U16, U14, and U12 races.

Open Results - Freestyle - Classic
Junior Results - Freestyle - Classic

FIS Australia / New Zealand Continental Cup
With only one race to go in the 2005 FIS Australia New Zealand Cup Ben Sim has a near unassailable lead in the men's category with 280 points ahead of Chris Darlington on 183 points. Hopes of the other Australian contenders Paul Murray and Ben Derrick were dashed when they missed the last weekend of competitions due to illness. In women's overall standings Esther Bottomley leads with 240 points, however will have a tough task to hold off Clare-Louise Brumley who shares second place withCamille Melvey on 200 points. With another hundred points up for grabs in the Hoppet next weekend and Brumley the favourite to win, Bottomley would need to finish in at least 3rd place to retain a share of the lead.

Overall Standings

Courtesy XC Files